Consumer Survey Reveals Thoughts About Travel Safety, Rewards Programs, and Loyalty

Outside expert analysis prompts further discussion and perspective on travelers’ habits and attitudes

With families in the thick of planning their summer vacations, a new travel survey conducted by ExpertFlyer.com reveals, not surprisingly, that the majority (81%) of travelers believe taking a vacation is very important, citing exposure to beauty, culture and new people as the biggest benefit. The survey also discovered that despite vast technological leaps and the convenience of online search and booking, planning a vacation is still a time-consuming proposition with 51% of those polled saying they spend a minimum of 2-3 hours over multiple days hunting down airfare deals and nearly a one-third spending in excess of 4 hours over multiple days. The overwhelming majority (79%) also said they would relinquish some privacy issues to expedite security checkpoints and voiced what they want airlines to do to maintain their loyalty

"The goal of this survey was to gain an understanding of consumer trends to better service customers moving forward and hopefully provide the travel industry, in general, with some insight about what travelers want and ways to increase loyalty," explains Chris Lopinto, president and co-founder of ExpertFlyer.com.

Among the key survey highlights:

• 51% said they spend a minimum of 2-3 hours over multiple days to find airfare deals and 27% spend in excess of 4 hours over multiple days. 80% of respondents said they book their tickets directly from the airlines via the Internet
• 37% have taken additional travel precautions in the last 12 months and 79% said they would consider participating in a biotech ID program, such as fingerprint or retina scans if it meant reducing wait times at TSA checkpoints and improve overall security
• 65% said they were able to redeem points for either an upgrade or award ticket in the last 12 months (up from 58% in an ExpertFlyer survey conducted last year)
• TripAdvisor (62%), Airline apps (42%) and Uber (26%) were the top three free travel apps
• Email (88%), Text (63%) and Facebook (52%) were the top 3 communication tools used by travelers

With less than 30 percent of respondents able to redeem awards at the ‘saver level,’ the survey underscores how difficult it is to redeem award points at this level. It’s interesting to note that 65 percent said they were able to redeem their miles but 50 percent said the ability to redeem has declined. This tells that travelers have devalued award points and are simply using more miles to obtain what they want and others are still holding out for those saver-level deals and aren’t finding them. In the U.S, the majority of airline miles are earned through credit card spending rather than actual travel due mostly to airlines using a revenue-based formula over miles traveled, and credit cards offering bonus points for specific purchases.

As airlines continue to create an a la carte menu for services, travelers are making conscious decisions about where to spend their money. The survey found that many respondents (40%) were willing to pay the extra baggage fee but were not willing to pay an additional fee to choose their own seat (42%). Baggage is a ‘must have’ when you travel for more than a week, or on certain types of trips like ski vacations and other activities where you need gear. On the other hand, seat selection fees are completely optional and many travelers do fine without paying.

Custom Travel Clubs has partnered with the best in the industry to provide best deals on travels to the members. Our Loyalty program provides the best rewards, benefits and savings to the members. We make it easy for members to save on travel so that they can take the vacations that matter. See the full list of all the travel benefits we provide.

We are the leading B2B membership based travel club fulfillment company that creates, operates and helps market travel clubs for brands and organizations around the world. We provide white label travel club platforms & solutions.

For more info, contact:

Mike Putman

mike@customtravelclubs.comSchedule Meeting

Custom Travel Clubs are experts in creating travel membership programs with more than 60 years of experience in travel domain